“Speaking of hits . . .” Ilsa, who was now running the website, came over. “We just had our biggest hour of all time. Check it out.” Her tablet showed orders coming in, one after another. “Ka-ching, ka-ching,” she said. “The April Showers in white is already sold out. We have back orders.”

“Here’s why.” Echo showed her the picture in Vogue. “We’ve got a big day tomorrow, eh?”

“Do we ever.”

Caroline pushed back from the desk. “Look at the time. You girls go home for the day. I’ll close up.”

After they’d left, Caroline stared at the photo for a few minutes more.

She knew the value of an influential celebrity endorsement. She knew the value of a mention in Vogue. Designers stalked the media in search of publicity. Though she lacked the funds for a campaign, she’d sent samples to Daria and Orson Maynard in New York, hoping to get her garments into the right hands. The process usually involved huge sponsorship fees, which she couldn’t afford.

Finally, somehow, her coat had ended up on a major star. She couldn’t stop staring at the beautiful photo, a candid shot of Cat, who had paired the anorak with high neoprene boots. She was strolling past a wrought iron fence, and she looked as fresh as the springtime.

Ordinarily, Caroline worked late after everyone had gone for the day. This was her design time, when there was music drifting through the barn and a vision in her mind. The brush with celebrity inspired her, so she noodled with a design she’d been thinking about. It was a trench with a capelet that could convert to a hood. “You’d look amazing in this, Cat Willoughby,” she murmured, clicking on the digitized illustration. “Blue serge? Maybe dotted swiss is due for a comeback . . .”

“I like the way you think.” Will stepped into the shop. His adopted dog, whom he’d named Fisher, trotted at his heels. He was in his teaching outfit—chinos, a long-sleeved shirt, striped tie. “I’ve always been a fan of dotted swiss.”

She snorted. “You don’t even know what that is.”

“It’s due for a comeback.” He unknotted his tie and leaned his hip against the counter.

“How was school?” she asked. When they ran into each other, coming and going, they tended to linger, shoot the breeze.

Like old friends, she told herself.

But the truth was, since his divorce, things were different between them. She did not examine this too closely. Evidently Will didn’t either. He dated women. Lots of different women. He was a regular man-about-town these days. She even teased him about it sometimes.

“School was amazing,” he said. “I’m amazing. I gave a group of sophomores a tour of the calculus and showed them how it will actually be useful to them later in life. Let me tell you, they were riveted.”

She grinned. “As am I.”

“How are things at the C-Shell Sewing Works?”

“Ha! So much more amazing than calculus. And I mean that. Check it out.” She clicked to the window showing the photo from Celebrity Style. “Cat Willoughby is wearing one of my coats. It was posted about an hour ago, and the website already sold out.”

“Hey, that’s fantastic. All the kids at school are nuts for that movie she’s in. Way to go, Caroline.”

“Thanks. It’s a shot in the arm, for sure. We’re going to have to work overtime to fill orders. I don’t have the infrastructure here to make things fast. I’m trying not to panic.”

“Don’t panic.” He gestured around the shop. “Look what you’ve done so far. You can handle anything.”

She couldn’t help smiling. “I like the way you think. And honestly, I couldn’t have done it without you charging me a pittance to rent this place. But I—”

Another email ping sounded. She glanced at the subject line and couldn’t suppress a gasp.

“More news?” he asked.

She opened the message. “Oh my God. Eau Sauvage wants a meeting.”

“Oh-So Vage? Never heard of it.”

“Eau Sauvage is French for wild water. It’s a high-end fashion label. Massively successful.”

“I assume wanting a meeting is the start of something big.”

She gripped the edge of the desk and looked up at him. There was a part of her—the biggest, most impulsive part of her—that wanted to leap up and throw her arms around him. Down, girl. He probably had a date tonight. He always had a date.

“It could be huge for me,” she said. “Complicated, though. I hope it’s not a be-careful-what-you-wish-for situation.”

“What do you wish for?”

She leaned back in her chair. “Being discovered by a big label used to be my greatest wish. Since I came back here, though, since the kids . . .” She pictured herself back in New York, going to meetings, living a dream that didn’t quite fit anymore. “I’ll listen to what they have to say. They might just steal my designs the way Mick Taylor did.”

“Man, I hope not. What ever happened to that guy, anyway?”

“He’s still going strong,” she said. She shut down her computer and grabbed her bag, suddenly eager to see Addie and Flick and hear about their day. They’d changed her perspective. They’d changed her life. “I try not to think about him because it makes me crazy. I still have revenge fantasies.”

“You ought to change channels, have a different kind of fantasy.” Will winked at her. Winked.

“Fuck off,” she said, certain he was teasing.

“Here’s a question: If this thing suddenly happened for you, for real, what would that look like?”

Her stomach churned. “I’d be back in New York in a New York minute. I admit it wouldn’t be easy with the kids, but it wouldn’t be impossible either. They might even go back to their same school.”

“You’d leave here, then.”

“I might. I’m getting way ahead of myself, though.” She paused. “Why do you ask?”

“Just curious. I shouldn’t have asked about your plans. I have a way of screwing up people’s plans.”

She kind of wished he would screw hers up. “Knock it off. Quit feeling sorry for yourself.”

And there it was. That smile. The smile she had fallen in love with, once upon a time.

Caroline designated Cat Willoughby her new best friend, because after the Vogue feature, her rainwear became a trend—and not just for the garments. The Sisterhood Against Domestic Violence invited her to Atlanta to tell the story of the Oysterville Sewing Circle.

“You’re going away?” Flick asked as she was packing her bag. Blackie scampered around the room, wrestling with a knotted rope.

“To talk to a group about our domestic violence program. It’s just for the weekend. I’ll be back Sunday night.”

Addie brought Wonder Woman over to the bed. “I don’t want you to go.”

Caroline stopped what she was doing. In the whirlwind of all the attention, she realized she had never spent a night apart from the children since they came into her care. Every time she woke to the fact that she was important to these kids was a small epiphany. “Oh, baby. It’s just for two nights, and you’ll be with Grammy Dot and Lyle.”

“It’s not the same.” Flick glowered at her.

“I think you can handle it, though.”

“We’re just getting to the good part in Ramona,” Addie said. Caroline was reading the book to them, a chapter a night.

They’d been doing so well lately that sometimes Caroline forgot how absolutely vital it was for them to feel secure. “Tell you what. We can do a video call and I’ll read to you.”

“It’s not the same,” Flick repeated.

“Why do you have to go?” Addie asked.

Caroline had discovered the one thing that always worked with these children—honesty. “Because it’s important,” she said. “Because your mama’s life was important. The most terrible thing in the world happened to her and she died. There’s nothing we can do to change that. But there’s this organization that can help other families dealing with violence, and they want to hear our story and what we’re doing about it now. If we keep talking about it and teaching people that violence is never okay, maybe we can help others.”

Both were quiet. She let them think about it. She still didn’t know what Angelique’s children had seen, what they’d heard. She wondered if Angelique had coached them to keep silent, possibly because she feared being separated from them thanks to her immigration status. Had they seen her injuries? Overheard arguments? Maybe one day they would open up to her. She wouldn’t push or nag them for answers.

“Why d’you gotta go?” Flick asked, echoing his sister.

“When the organization called, I asked them the same thing. And we talked about the group I started up and the job-training program we have. But mostly we talked about you. And how you were left all alone and how important it was to keep you safe. They want to hear about that. It could help people.”

“It can’t help us,” Flick pointed out. “It can’t help our mama.”

“I know. But you like helping others, right?”

He thought for a moment. Reached down and scratched Blackie behind the ears. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess.”

Caroline sat on the bed and opened her arms. “Come here, you two.”

They clambered up, and Blackie jumped into Flick’s lap. She gathered them all into her arms. They filled her to the brim, and she rested her lips on their sweet warm heads. “I’ll be back before you know it. Okay?”

“Yeah,” Flick said.

“Okay, Mom,” Addie whispered.